


Of written confessions, dinosaur stickers and oblivious Megane-kuns

by DieroteRosine



Series: KuroTsuki Week 2020 [4]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: #KuroTsukiWeek2020, #krtskweek2020, Canon Compliant, Day 4: Letter, Drunken Confessions, Drunken Flirting, Fluff, KuroTsuki Week 2020, Kuroo is a soft Boy, M/M, Pen Pals, Pre-Relationship, Slow Burn, Stickers, Texting, Tsukishima Kei Likes Dinosaurs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-26
Updated: 2020-07-26
Packaged: 2021-03-04 21:13:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,732
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25482961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DieroteRosine/pseuds/DieroteRosine
Summary: The first letter reached Tsukishima on a Friday.When he was about to disappear into his room after school, his mother stopped him at the stairs and pressed the white envelope into his hand."Mail for you, Kei. You didn't tell me that you had friends in Tokyo? "_______________After their trainingscamp Tsukishima receives a letter from a certain Team-captain and isn't really sure what to do with it.
Relationships: Kuroo Tetsurou/Tsukishima Kei
Series: KuroTsuki Week 2020 [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1844776
Comments: 14
Kudos: 182





	Of written confessions, dinosaur stickers and oblivious Megane-kuns

**Author's Note:**

> As always I'd like to excuse minor spelling mistakes, english is not my first language :)

For Tsukishima there has always been a fine line between distance and affection - even as a child it was harder for him to make friends with new people than for other children.  
  
At first it was a certain shyness, soon it became disgruntled and afterwards it was only stubbornness.  
  
He didn't saw the necessity to immediately get involved with the openness and intrusiveness of other people and that was exactly the reason why he refused Kuroo Tetsuro his number on the last evening of their training camp.  
  
The captain from Nekoma seemed really surprised and somewhat offended for a moment, but quickly recovered and patted Tsukishima on the back, laughing.  
  
"Well then Tsukki. I guess I'll have to try harder next time."  
  
This ended the conversation and Tsukishima only thought about Kuroo's slightly hurt facial expression for three days, before everyday life caught up with them again and suddenly everything was more important than a possible misinterpretation of feelings.  
  
Even if Tsukishima was still wondering what Kuroo had expected from asking for his number.  
  
After all, he was just some student, and they certainly didn't have much to talk about outside of volleyball.  
  
He was sure of that.

The first letter reached Tsukishima on a Friday.  
  
When he was about to disappear into his room after school, his mother stopped him at the stairs and pressed the white envelope into his hand.  
  
"Mail for you, Kei. You didn't tell me that you had friends in Tokyo? "  
  
To say that Tsukishima was confused would have been an understatement, because 1.) who would write to him and 2.) especially from Tokyo?  
He could count all the people he knew from there on one hand and the chance that one of them was the author was pretty small.  
  
Still, he glanced quickly at the neatly scribbled Kanjis on the back and couldn't help but snort in disbelief.  
  
"That guy again.”, He murmured under the attentive look of his mother and she leaned forward with interest.  
  
"Kuroo T., huh? Is that one of your friends? "  
  
"Friends, yes, he surely would like that.", Tsukishima sighed, "No Mum, it's one of my senpais from volleyball. I met him during training camp."  
  
"Oh." His mother's face brightened. "How thoughtful of him to write you a letter. I'm _very pleased_ that you don't only have Tadashi as friends, Kei."  
  
Tsukishima rolled his eyes slightly and stuffed the letter into his backpack. "I already said he is not a friend. Just an acquaintance."  
  
Hoshina Tsukishima gave her youngest son an amused smile and then nodded.  
"Yes, I'm _sure_ he's just an acquaintance. But he wrote you a letter, so please take your time and answer him. Even if you don't see him as a friend, but I think that would just be polite, OK Kei? "  
  
She flashed at him from below and Tsukishima sighed again before disappearing into his room with a shrug and grumble.  
More in a hurry than he liked, he caught himself pulling Kuroo's letter out of his pocket and opening the envelope.  
  
In addition to a folded paper, there were also four small stickers in it, which Tsukishima could easily recognize as a Chibi dinosaurs and he asked himself for a moment whether he should simply throw away the letter unread, if he already had got a headache from the stickers alone.  
  
But his rational side, who knew that his mother would disown him if he didn't answer Kuroo, decided against this idea and he sat on the bed with the letter and unfolded it.  
  
The first thing that struck him immediately was the extremely neat handwriting, which was spread out in fine lines across the page, and it elicited a slight smile at the thought that Kuroo had taken great pains to write legibly.  
  
As expected, the letter began with his nickname and Tsukishima snorted as he scanned the note.

_"Hello Tsukki,  
First of all, I hope that Daichi hasn't fooled me and that this is really your correct address, otherwise "Hi unknown person, please destroy this letter."  
  
However, if it's actually you, Tsukki, please don't throw the letter away immediately, I'm really trying to be brief, haha.  
  
Since you didn't want to give me your number, but I would very much like to keep in touch with you, I got your address and ten stamps. So prepare yourself for a few more letters!  
  
Anyway, what I was going to say was that I somehow miss your squad here. Bokuto also told me yesterday that Gym 3 was like stupid funny and we __**absolutely**_ _have to repeat it when you're around.  
  
I also saw a cat on the way to school this morning that extremely reminded me of you. I would draw her, but I wouldn't match her pissed-off expression so well, so just imagine a big blonde-brown cat staring at me from the wall and then biting my hand."  
  
_Here Tsukishima had to stop short and suppress a laugh. He wasn't sure if it was an insult to be compared to such a cat, but the fact that the cat had bitten Kuroo was funnier than he wanted to admit. _  
  
"Kenma said he missed Chibi, so I suggest you come back with your club soon. Or we come to visit you. Not as a club but only Bo, Akaashi, Kenma and me. Then we can all play volleyball together and you can show me your hood. What do you think about? I think the idea is pretty good! (Took me whole 3 days)  
  
In any case, I just wanted you to know that I'm now eagerly awaiting a message from you, but no pressure, haha.  
  
I would be happy to do so via email or SMS, but if you don't want to give me your contact details, I'll stick to writing letters.  
  
YO, have a nice day and greet your family from me :)  
Kuroo  
  
PS: I saw the stickers in a shop yesterday and they reminded me a little of our small group, so I had to buy them. The dino with the strange spines looks like Bo, you have to agree with me. ”_  
  
For a moment, Tsukishima just sat there staring absently at the note in his hand, not sure what to think of the whole thing.  
  
He hadn't given Kuroo his number in the training camp for the simple reason that he saw no point in establishing a friendly relationship, that would come to an end as soon as the other person noticed that Tsukishima was – in fact - not an exciting person.  
  
But now Kuroo had gone the long way and took the initiative on his own - so there was no real reason for Tsukishima not to answer him.  
  
After another five minutes of searching the entire house for white paper under the amused looks of his mother, Tsukishima sat down at his desk and began to write uncertainly.  
  
_"Hello Kuroo-san,  
first of all, my name is Tsukishima and not Tsukki. And no, Daichi doesn't seem to have fooled you, much to my displeasure. Has it become fashionable to publish the addresses of their students without asking? I don't want to know who has my address besides you now.  
~~But it almost flatters me that you went out of your way to write to me. "~~  
_  
Tsukishima paused, then removed the last sentence with an ink killer. Instead, he wrote:  
  
_"Why exactly did you buy 10 stamps? I don't intend to write to you more than necessary, do you know what a bother all of this is?  
_  
_And please refrain from coming to Sendai just like that. I play volleyball every god damn day_ , _so I_ _don't want to spend my rightfully earned weekends with these volleyball idiots (read: King and Shrimpy) and that will inevitably happen when Kenma-san, Akaashi-san and Bokuto-san show up here, I would be more than grateful to you not to have this group meeting in Sendai.  
  
But you're right about one thing- I would probably have bitten you as a cat if you had tried to stroke me._  
  
\- _Tsukishima  
PS: The "Bokuto" dinosaur is a stegosaurus. You should have that much general education."_  
  
With a sigh, Tsukishima rolled across the room in his chair and grabbed an envelope, on which he noted Kuroo's address and then, in a short circuit reaction, pinned the old envelope to the wall.  
  
His mother's face when he asked her for a stamp in the evening probably couldn't have been more smug and with the broadest smile she handed Tsukishima a whole stack of stamps.

"Just for safety." According to her, but Tsukishima could already see how she peddled with all her friends that her hermit son “finally” found a “pen pal”.  
  
This "pen pal" turned out to be a constant companion of Tsukishima's weekends for the next few weeks, because every Friday from there on a new letter arrived and Hoshina Tsukishima looked more and more complacent.  
  
The last conversation with her two best friends, who came over for tea regularly, was almost exclusively about "Kei's secret friend". Hoshina had broken down how many letters Tsukishima had already received from the Tokyo player and her two friends had delightedly asked for every detail that Hoshina had been able to get out of Kei.  
  
And that was, much to Tsukishima's horror, more than he had suspected.

  
From whatever source, but Hoshina now knew that Kuroo was two years older than him, attended the Nekoma High and was "even team captain of their volleyball club, how exciting."  
  
But even Tsukishima could not claim to find the exchange with Kuroo completely terrible.  
  
Within their two months of writing regularly, he had found out so many fun facts about the Nekoma team captain, that it felt like he had known him for much longer.  
  
Let it be the fact that Kuroo had a secret penchant for retro science fiction films and knew almost the entire first season of Star Trek by heart or the fact that he had memorized the dance for "Single Ladies" for a crush he had in middle school and still could dance it.  
  
Quite apart from absolutely embarrassing stories that Kuroo laid out in his letters without shame.  
  
Kuroo had written one of the letters, which may have been the fifth, in a not yet sobered state after he had celebrated Yaku-sans birthday the night before.  
  
After that, Tsukishima had sworn Kuroo to reproach him forever with the sleazy lines that the black-haired player had put on paper in the alcohol frenzy.  
  
Quite a few of them included outraged discussions with himself about “why Lev managed to find a boyfriend (read: Yaku) before Kuroo was even able to ask his crush on a date”.  
  
In the letter a week later, Kuroo had generously avoided the subject, even if Tsukishima had to admit that his heart had briefly - very briefly - been beating faster at Kuroo's drunken words.  
  
After this trip on thin ice, Kuroo had left it again for a whole letter to talk about the likelihood of aliens in higher political positions and all the cute cats he had seen.  
  
The blonde had kept the fact that he had dreamed of Kuroo right after that and would continue to do so, even if his life depended on this information.

When another letter was in his mailbox the upcoming Friday, Tsukishima managed to get it into his room unseen and opened the envelope in a frightening routine.  
  
As always, a small stack of stickers fluttered towards him, Kuroo had apparently set himself the task of drowning Tsukishima's life in stickers.  
His laptop was now adorned with two dinosaur stickers, four cat stickers and a small crow sticker, wherever he got that from.  
He had put the remaining 40+ stickers in a compartment in his table, unable and unwilling to decorate all the surfaces in his room with them, enough was enough.  
This time three glitter stickers who represented the sun, the moon and a star shone from his lap at him and Tsukishima smiled slightly.  
  
As he carefully removed the stickers, he fished the letter out of the envelope and started to read.  
  
_"Tsukki!  
I can hardly believe it myself, but this is our tenth letter. Crazy how quickly time went by. 2 1/2 months, that's a little anniversary. It kind of feels like yesterday when I first wrote to you. ”_  
  
Tsukishima paused and looked at his calendar on the wall, confused. Indeed, it had been almost three months since the first letter and something in Tsukishima's chest contracted.  
Because he knew that Kuroo had mentioned in the first letter how he had bought exactly ten stamps.  
And that only allowed only one conclusion.  
  
_"You probably remember that I said I would write ten letters to you, Tsukki. I've now achieved that (yeah), but somehow it feels strange to say that this is the last letter. We've really spent a lot of time together now and I'm like super grateful that you still had the nerve to answer me.  
I know I'm sometimes very exhausting and pushy - I mean, who would write his crush letters after they obviously rejected him?"  
_  
Tsukishima choked on the air and almost instantly heat shot in his cheeks.  
  
He must have misread the last part.  
  
But no, even after rereading it several times, it still said in black and white that Kuroo had called him his crush.  
  
Something in Tsukishima's brain short circuited and he stared at the piece of paper in front of him without any human reaction.

It took him several minutes to process what in the hell just had happened.  
  
Kuroo Tetsuro, his Senpai, the annoying cat-dude with this accident of an hairstyle, the respected team captain from Nekoma, had a crush on _him_.  
  
Him, Tsukishima Kei, who was absolutely nothing more than a way too tall first grader with a sharp tongue.  
  
Tsukishima shook his head in disbelief and laughed overwhelmed. Then his eyes went to the rest of the letter's small paragraph.  
  
_"Now that the cat is out of the bag, I would hope that you may not hate me too much and write me one last answer letter.  
It's absolutely fine for me, if you don't feel like it anymore, God knows, I can understand you.  
But if there is still a spark of acceptance somewhere, I would be super happy to hear from you._  
  
_One last time - Kuroo  
0146-7622-xxxx "_

"You god damn idiot." Tsukishima murmured, but his voice lacked any bite and he fished for his cell phone at the same moment.  
With a pounding heart, he entered the number given and opened a new chat.  
  
**Me:** "Why exactly didn't you just buy more stamps?"  
  
Almost immediately the little "online" symbol appeared next to Kuroo's number and Tsukishima started chewing on his lower lip unconsciously when Kuroo started typing something.  
  
**Kuroo-san:** "You may not believe it, but that's exactly what I did earlier. In the event that you answer something positive, but still don't want to write via WhatsApp."  
**Me:** "So then I no longer have to pay my attention here and can write an answer letter?"  
**Kuroo-san:** "Noooo Tsukki, I've been fighting for almost three months to get your number :("  
**Me:** "Guess I'll probably have to change it now ..."  
**Kuroo-san:** "Tsukki :( Why are you so mean to me?"  
**Me:** "Because you wrote and I fucking quote “One Last Time – Kuroo" in your letter? You're not dead or something like that, idiot. That was far too dramatic."  
**Kuroo-san:** "You have no idea how dramatic it was when I wrote this letter. I had to stop twice and annoy Kenma until he threatened to film my nervous breakdown and put it on Youtube."  
**Me:** "Kenma-san is becoming more and more likeable to me."  
**Kuroo-san:** "With that, I decided to never leave you two alone in one room for too long.”  
  
Tsukishima laughed softly and leaned back in his chair as he typed another message to Kuroo.  
If he thought about it more deeply, he could certainly get used to writing with Kuroo this way.  
Even if he would block him immediately should the other start sending him cat videos every day.  
  
He would survive everything else.  
  
And maybe at some point he would be brave enough to respond to Kuroo's confession.  
  
Even if not in a letter this time.  
  
But the answer would still make Kuroo happy.  
He was sure of that.


End file.
